Authors: James Haydock
In spite of the film not being a big hit, Tom had made his first foray into the world of the big-budget, star-studded, glossy Hollywood romantic comedy. Now that he had one foot firmly planted on American soil, the projects he was taking on were bigger and he was starting to become a name people would remember.
Bigger – in every sense of the word – was most definitely the order of the day when it came to Tom’s next job. In fact you can’t really get much bigger than the third and final instalment of Christopher Nolan’s
Batman
trilogy. The excitement, the budget, the hype, the cast were all huge – and, as it happened, so was Tom’s character!
In his original form, Batman was a DC Comics superhero. He has been brought to life in various guises, first in two 1940s films and then in the 1960s television series in which Adam West took the title role. The television series bore little resemblance to the dark nature of the original comic book stories and was bright, colourful and camp. In the 1980s, Batman was brought to the big screen over the course of several films. The first,
Batman
, came out in 1989 and was directed by Tim Burton, with Michael Keaton in the title role and Jack Nicholson as The Joker. The film was deemed a success, both critically and commercially. The 1989 film was followed in 1992 by
Batman Returns
which boasted villains in the form of Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman and Danny de Vito as The Penguin. In 1995, the shine of the new
Batman
films faded a little when Joel Schumacher took over as director and Michael Keaton was replaced by Val Kilmer in the lead role. The series limped to a close with the fourth and final film,
Batman and Robin
in 1997. Val Kilmer couldn’t commit because of scheduling conflicts and was replaced by George Clooney and Schumacher once again took the helm as director. The tone of the film was too light-hearted and silly, probably thanks to Schumacher’s decision to pay homage to the 1960s television series, and was far from beloved by critics or fans.
Thank heavens for Christopher Nolan, who has proved himself a trustworthy custodian of the caped crusader. In 2003, Nolan and co-writer David S. Goyer began work on
Batman Begins
for Warner Brothers. They knew from the start that they wanted the film to have a dark, brooding atmosphere and to be more realistic than the previous attempts.
Batman Begins
went back to the start of the Batman story and showed how he made his initial journey from Bruce Wayne to adopting his alter ego. The film was a fine achievement and was helped by having a perfectly cast group of actors working on it. Christian Bale – another actor known for his transformations and for the intensity he can bring to his characters was cast as Bruce Wayne/Batman, with Michael Caine as loyal valet Alfred. Tower of strength Gary Oldman was weary, morally upstanding Commissioner Gordon and Cillian Murphy was superb as the villainous Scarecrow. Katie Holmes brought just the right blend of strength and vulnerability to Bruce’s love interest Rachel Dawes. Released in 2005, the film was applauded by reviewers and restored the faith of audiences in a superhero movie franchise.
The winning formula was repeated in the second instalment in 2008,
The Dark Knight
. Bale, Caine and Oldman all reprised their roles and they were joined by Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent/Two-Face and Heath Ledger as The Joker. Tragically, Heath Ledger died of a sleeping pill overdose shortly after he’d finished shooting his scenes. His performance as The Joker was one of the many highlights of the film, which was lauded both by critics and fans.
The Dark Knight
was a runaway success and, as well as being the highest-grossing movie of 2008, is the eleventh-highest
grossing film of all time. This paved the way nicely for the third part of the trilogy in 2012.
Fans were desperate to hear any news about the final film of the series and their patience was finally rewarded at the end of April 2010 when Warner Brothers confirmed that the film was underway and would be released in July 2012. Granted, there would be two agonising years to get through, but if Nolan’s previous form was anything to go by, it would be worth the wait. In October 2010 came the announcement that the title of the film would be
Batman – The Dark Knight Rises.
Gradually, over the course of the next few months, pieces of information about the film were fed to the press. It was confirmed that Christian Bale, Gary Oldman and Michael Caine would be returning for the conclusion, but one of the biggest questions on fans’ lips was which villains were going to be making an appearance. Nolan is famed for keeping his powder dry and, at this early stage, gave away very little of his plans. One thing he did confess to, though, was that the villain in his film would categorically not be The Riddler. Speaking to the
Los Angeles Times Hero Complex
, he did say: ‘We’ll use many of the same characters as we have all along, and we’ll be introducing some new ones.’ Not many clues there!
In January 2011, more news was forthcoming and it was announced that one of the villains of the piece was to be a character called Bane – and he would be played by none other than Tom Hardy. Anne Hathaway was confirmed as Selina Kyle/Catwoman and Joseph Gordon Levitt and Marion Cotillard were both definitely to be in the film, but who exactly they would be playing remained the subject of debate.
Nolan said at the time: ‘We’re very much excited about really finishing a trilogy and giving a conclusion to our story. And that’s what we’re doing.’
Tom, needless to say, was delighted to have secured such a major role and wasn’t afraid of showing his excitement when asked about it. ‘
Batman
is such an amazing franchise that I honestly feel overwhelmingly privileged to be part of it. It’s such an amazing cast to work alongside, they are all so talented. I loved being able to play a baddie and, coming from East Sheen in South-West London, that doesn’t come easily to me. I actually had to work on not being very nice,’ he explained to the
Mirror
. He was understandably anxious, though, because he knew that comic-book fans had strong opinions on Bane and didn’t want to be the one to let them down. ‘So many people love him, and when you step into that role – you are going to fail. And be judged,’ he told
CineMovie
.
The icing on the cake for Tom was to be working with Christopher Nolan again. He’d been lucky enough to work with the director on
Inception
and has the greatest respect for him. Tom often makes reference to the esteem in which he holds the director when he gives interviews and has variously said that he would read anything Nolan asked him to, including a shopping list or a telephone directory! ‘When Christopher Nolan throws a ball, I go fetch. I feel incredibly lucky to be working with a man of such imagination and technical ability. Long may it continue. He’s on a roll,’ he said in an interview with
Huffington Post.
Tom also feels indebted to Nolan as the director has given him two very big opportunities to showcase his talent in front
of a much bigger audience: first in
Inception
and now in
Dark Knight Rises
. ‘I owe an awful lot to Christopher Nolan, because he put me on a massive platform and trusted me twice. I’m very grateful for it,’ he told the
Daily Telegraph
.
Nolan had wanted Tom to play Bane from the start, but feared that his filming commitments on
Mad Max – Fury
Road
would clash with filming for
The Dark Knight Rises
. When he heard that
Mad Max
had been delayed, he made the call to Tom who didn’t need to be asked twice.
It’s noticeable that, besides using actors who had appeared in the previous
Batman
films, for the new characters he ended up casting quite a proportion of actors with whom he had worked on previous projects. Tom, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard had all been in Nolan’s
Inception
. As well as being familiar with these actors’ work and knowing what he could achieve with them, perhaps the director’s penchant for remaining tight-lipped on his projects means that he likes to keep a close and trusted circle of familiar faces around him. The strategy seems to work and they all remain loyal to the cause – even if they themselves are often kept in the dark about what is happening in the film. ‘Chris Nolan doesn’t tell you anything,’ said Tom. ‘So I don’t know what I’m doing or who I’m playing until the morning that I’m working.’
When it came to
The Dark Knight Rises
, Nolan was refusing even to let the actors know how the film would end, to minimise the risk of any details slipping out into the public domain. He apparently sent scripts out to some of them with pages missing. Gary Oldman received his script with the final few pages missing and had to go and see Nolan in person to find out what would take place in the final scenes.
‘Christopher doesn’t want anyone to ruin it and I completely understand that. The newer people on the film go to his office to read the script.’ According to Oldman he has the details of the ending ‘locked away in his head’.
When the press attempt to get any information out of cast members about the content of the film, they are met with a wall of silence. Tom and Joseph Gordon-Levitt have both invoked the ‘just trust Christopher Nolan’ mantra when confronted by media speculation. The only small slip-up came when 12-year-old Joey King, a young actress in the film, revealed that her character was to be the young Talia al Ghul. She then, however, went on to say, ‘I can’t give too much away because I promised Mr Nolan I wouldn’t say anything. There are too many secrets about the character and the movie.’
The fact that King revealed who she would be playing was deemed a spoiler as it hadn’t been confirmed that the character Talia al Ghul, daughter of villainous Ras al Ghul (played by Liam Neeson in
Batman Begins
) would be appearing in the film. It had long been rumoured that Marion Cotillard might be playing the older version of the character and the statement from King confirmed that the character would be making an appearance. And if she was to play ‘the young’, who would be playing the older incarnation?
So who was this baddie that Tom would be inhabiting? Bane was indeed a villain taken from the Batman comic books. He was created in 1993 by writers Chuck Dixon and Doug Moench, along with artist Graham Nolan (no relation to Christopher). Bane’s sole purpose was to destroy Batman and he is legendary for being ‘the man who broke the bat’. The character was born and raised in a high-security prison.
Thanks to his background, he turned into a vicious but clever assassin who, thanks to having had experiments carried out on him using a derivative of the drug Venom, has superhuman strength. He is the most powerful and cerebral enemy Batman has ever come up against. ‘Yes, he’s even smarter than Bruce Wayne, with six languages at his disposal and a photographic memory. A superb detective, he’s able to deduce Batman’s secret identity in just one year. Even scarier? Unlike The Joker and Two-Face, Bane is completely sane,’ wrote
Total Film
in October 2011.
Bane had appeared in Joel Schumacher’s
Batman and Robin,
but justice wasn’t done to the character and he was used as a camp sideshow to Uma Thurman’s Poison Ivy. Thankfully, the Bane of Chris Nolan and Tom Hardy’s imagination looks set to be something larger than life and utterly terrifying. Speaking to
Empire
magazine in January 2012, Tom gave his appraisal, as far as he was permitted at that stage, of Bane. ‘He’s brutal. And, you know, he’s a big dude. He’s a big dude who’s incredibly clinical… it’s not about fighting. It’s just about carnage with Bane. He’s a smashing machine.’ And while he was prepared to talk about how Bane fights, lips were firmly sealed on any other aspect of the villain.
Tom would once again have to beef up big time to transform into Bane. And, once again, Pnut would be by his side, helping him to build muscle in all the right places. For
Warrior
, Tom had bolstered his muscles to such an extent that he weighed 179 pounds. For Bane, he upped his body mass even more and weighed in at 190 pounds. He wanted to grow as big as he possibly could to try and live up to fans’ expectations of the enormous hulk. Those fans apparently
would have loved Bane to be 400 pounds, as per his comic book incarnation, but this was just a bit too much of a stretch for poor Tom. Even the king of transformation has his limits!
Of course, for Tom, the transformation wasn’t purely physical. Christopher Nolan knew that he was an actor easily talented enough to take on all the challenges that playing a villain such as Bane presented. For a start, he would have to wear a mask which, as well as being uncomfortable, would conceal a lot of his face and therefore a great deal of facial expression would be lost. ‘I felt that if I could get somebody as talented as Tom to agree to hide himself in the character I would get something very special,’ Nolan told
Empire
magazine. He went on to compliment the way in which Tom can play a big brute of a character, but is still able to pull back those raw characteristics when he needs to. ‘He’s found a way to play a character who is enormous and powerful with a sort of calm to it.’ To those familiar with Tom’s acting this would come as no surprise – he has shown time and again that he will always find a way to portray the light and shade in any character he plays.
Aware of the fans’ insatiable appetite for information about the film, the press were keen to run any stories associated with it as they knew whatever they printed would be devoured hungrily. One angle they seemed to like was constantly publishing pictures of Tom’s ever-expanding physique leading up to and during shooting of the film: there were photos of Tom arriving on US soil and even photos of him ‘showing off his bulging biceps’ whilst out shopping in LA.
It wouldn’t be too long before fans were given a small concession to their curiosity. In May 2011, the internet was
abuzz with news of an official ‘leaked’ photo of Tom Hardy as his Bane character. The week prior, the official
Dark Knight
Rises
website had been launched and had mysteriously consisted of a black screen and some background chanting noise. While some may have thought there was a glitch with the site, clever fans figured out that if the noise was played through a programme that can visualise audio files, it would display a Twitter hashtag. Fans who tweeted the hashtag then found that their Twitter avatars were used to build a mosaic on the website which, when complete, revealed the Bane photograph. The first reaction was that fans had got the better of website security and leaked the photos, but it was in fact an extraordinarily clever viral marketing campaign on the part of Nolan and Warner Bros.